


Charlie White Has a Nightmare

by CeleryThesis



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 10:09:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1740830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CeleryThesis/pseuds/CeleryThesis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a work of fiction and not a reflection of the real lives and relationships of the people involved.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Charlie White Has a Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fiction and not a reflection of the real lives and relationships of the people involved.

Dr. Little was easily over six feet, five inches tall.  He called their names from his door, and they walked it, Tanith ahead and Charlie following quickly behind.  Dr. Little sat on a comfortable looking chair in his small office.  The office was filled with art and other objects one could get lost in for hours.  Charlie was immediately drawn to a painting of a young chimpanzee wearing a party dress similar to one Charlie had seen on his mother in a photograph of her at five. Dr. Little instructed the two to have a seat on the sofa across from his chair.  They obeyed.

"Let's get started by talking some about each of you.  Tanith, would you please tell me about yourself?"

"Okay, sure.  I'm Tanith. I just turned thirty. I'm engaged to Charlie. We've been together for five years. I'm an ice skater. I was an ice dancer. I coach now, ice dancing. I'm a broadcaster.  I work for NBC part time.  I mostly do ice dance commentary.  We, Charlie and I, just bought a house together.  We had a condo before that.  We've lived together for about four years.  We have a dog. And yeah..."

"Are you from Michigan, Tanith?"

"No, I was born in Canada. I grew up in Quebec.  I'm an Anglo-Quebecker. I started skating with an American, Ben, when I was fourteen, and I moved to Michigan.  I became a U.S. citizen in 2005."

"Tell me about Ben."

"He was my partner for my whole career.  He lives in Seattle with his girlfriend.  He's also a coach."

"Are the two of you close?"

"Um, yes.  We don't talk a lot, but when we do, it's like, you know, we pick right up."

"Okay.  Now, Charlie, tell me about yourself."

"I'm also an ice dancer.  I go to the University of Michigan."  Charlie fought the compulsion to say _Go Blue!_   "I'm 26.  House and dog are the same as Tanith.  Ha Ha! Ha!"

Did Dr. Little give him a withering look? Okay, try harder.

"I'm retiring from competitive skating." Straight face.

"What are you studying?"

"History and political science.  I want to go to law school.  I have three semesters left of undergraduate."

"And you're from Michigan." It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"And Tanith, can you tell me what brought you here?"

Tanith sighed.  "I love Charlie.  I love our life.  I want to make sure we're...on the same page before we get married."

"Charlie?"

She made me.

"I love Tanith, and I want our marriage to be as strong as possible."

"Who initiated counseling?"

"I did." Tanith said quietly.

"Charlie, what did you think when Tanith suggested it?" Dr. Little looked at him like he might have slashed the doctor's tires in the parking lot before coming in the building.

"Well...I was surprised, I guess, but like I said..."

"Why were you surprised?"

"We just got engaged, and I...I didn't know that...I didn't know what she was...is concerned about, I guess."

Tanith looked at him like he might have slashed her tires in the parking lot before coming in the building.

"Tanith, tell Charlie your concerns."

Or, you know, don't.

Tanith reaaaallllly sighed. "Charlie," sigh, "like he said," sigh "is an ice dancer." Siiiiiiigh.  "And his partner for his whole career is...like...a...third person...in this relationship.  Sometimes."

"Charlie?" Dr. Little looked at him.

"Yes?"

"Charlie, it will be helpful to the process if you will speak honestly."

Oh, it really will not be. Helpful.

"Okay?  My partner is Meryl.  I've known her my whole life.  She has a boyfriend. We have a few more skating commitments and then we're both moving on professionally."

"Charlie." Tanith said sadly.

"Tanith?" Dr. Little looked at her.  "Speak."

Good girl!  Here's a treat for the good girl.  Speak?

"Meryl and Charlie are partners, but they're more, too.  I know what a platonic partnership is.  I lived one. I know it's stressful to train for the Olympics. I know how close you become and how bonded you feel.  This is different."

"How?" The doctor asked.

"He acts gulity.  She acts guilty--she is or was a friend of mine, I've known them for years, he's jealous of her boyfriend..."

"What?" Charlie exclaimed.  Tanith ignored him.

"I'm almost positive they kiss and perhaps more when they're away together."

"Oh my god!  Tanith!  We haven't kissed..."

In months.

"Okay, let's ask Meryl." Dr. Little said.

Huh?  Meryl was sitting next to him in her freestyle...dress?  Nightie?

Meryl sighed.  "I have a boyfriend."

"Charlie, Meryl has a boyfriend." The doctor told him.

"I knoooooow.  I told you that."

"I have a very hot Russian or Ukrainian boyfriend.  We're all a bit sketchy about whether he's Russian or Ukrainian.  But he's definitely hot." Meryl said.

"Charlie, Tanith says you're jealous of Meryl's hot Russian or Ukrainian boyfriend."

"Tanith said that?" Meryl laughed.

"She did," answered Dr. Little.

"Well, I suppose he might be.  My hot boyfriend makes me feel like a woman.  We look at each other like we have sex.  We do have sex.  He's not like my brother."

"I'm not like your brother!" Charlie yelled.

"Of course you're not.  God, Charlie, it's not that dire," Tanith said in a tone that radiated confusion.

Tanith in her denim mini-skirt and well-fitted button down was next to him on the couch.

"Why would you compare yourself to Tanith's brother?" Dr. Little asked him.

"He's not comparing himself to my brother, he's suggesting that I think of him like a brother, which is weird and disturbing."

"That's not what I meant."

"What did you mean?" Dr. Little asked.

"I have no idea."

"Let's get this back to Meryl," the doctor said. "You're were saying that you're jealous that she has sex with her boyfriend?"

"I was not saying that!"

"Yes, I think that goes right to the heart of the issue," Tanith said.  "Charlie is deeply jealous that Maks can have sex with Meryl."

"And Maks must be the hot Russian or Ukrainian boyfriend?"

"Exactly," Tanith said.  "And his name...it's like Max but it's Maks.  Maaaaaaaks.  I mean that's just impossibly sexy, right?"

"Right," said Meryl.  Sitting next to him in the nightie.  "Maks.  Oh, Maaaaaaks.  I mean, it's just sexy, come on."

"Charlie, do you disagree with Meryl?"  Little asked him.

"No.  He's sex.  He's sex on a stick.  Just ask him." Charlie was resigned at this point.

"And you want to have sex with Maks, too?" Meryl asked him.

"NO!"

"Hmmmmmm.  Very defensive answer." Dr. Little wrote in his notebook.

"No, I don't want to have sex with Maks.  I don't want to have sex with Meryl," Charlie implored.

"Really, sweetie?" Jacqui looked over her glasses at him from Dr. Little's chair and wrote something in her notebook.

"Mom!" Charlie yelled.

"And see," Tanith said, on the sofa.  Right next to him. "That's a whole other thing.  Apron. Strings. Like whoa."

"Mother issues," Dr. Little said as he was writing in his notebook.

'Hey, I wouldn't go that far!" Meryl said, next to him. "Sometimes you need your mother to travel with you and to make sure you have a healthy lunch well into your mid to late twenties.  That's perfectly healthy."

"Exactly, dear," Jacqui said.

"Charlie, I have a follow-up about your jealousy towards Maks and me and our sex life," Meryl said.

"Yes, I think this is productive," Dr. Little said.  "Is it more that you and Meryl grew up together and matured at roughly the same time and there was a perfectly natural curiosity that developed between two people.  Not that you actually wanted to have sex with her, but it's healthy and normal to have fantasies about people you spend so much time with.  And you can't really control your fantasies, isn't that right, Charlie?" Dr. Little said.

"Yes!"  Finally this guy was making sense.

"Oh, I think it goes much deeper than that.  Charlie and Meryl are in many ways one person.  They must have a primordial urge to physically _become_ one person," Jacqui said.

"I'm just going to be over here trying to remember every word to the Gettysburg Address."  Charlie got off the sofa and went to stand in the corner.

"Oh come on," Jessica Armstrong, Charlie's eighth grade crush said from the sofa, "he's always been a bit of a perv."

"That's true," topless Sharna said from the sofa.  "And he's like my little brother."

DJ jumped on him and walked on his chest and barked, wanting to go outside.  Charlie was in his bed light barely coming in from the window; Tanith sleeping sweetly beside him. 

"Fuuuuuuck."


End file.
